This weekend we celebrated our beautiful friend Natalie! We rented the cutest house in Annapolis! What happens during the bachelorette weekend, stays at the bachelorette weekend. BUT, I thought I'd share some of my favorites!
I can't wait until September!!!
Ever since our honeymoon to Italy, we have talked about going on more weekend trips to just explore. One of my favorite parts of our honeymoon was all the walking and talking and seeing we did. Bryce's birthday is tomorrow but we celebrated it over the weekend with a trip to DC! (PS all photos are from my iphone- we traveled super light this weekend)
We already had plans to see Houndmouth at The 930 Club, so I built everything around that!
We headed down to DC Saturday afternoon and checked into our hotel, The Dupont Circle Hotel (who immediately upgraded us when they found out it was Bryce's birthday!). Is my family the only ones that take pictures of the bathroom where they are staying? Just mine? Okay. Well the bathroom at our hotel was beautiful (white marble is my love language) and I couldn't not send it to my family! They had heated floors and the prettiest bath products you ever did see!
Next we walked to the Spy Museum (and there was a bridge that reminded me so much of one in Rome that ends with the Colosseum) , grabbed drinks at our hotel and then went to dinner at Ezme. A fantastic Turkish, tapas restaurant.
The next morning we took it easy with coffee and an easy walk around Dupont Circle (which we adore and if we ever move to DC we are moving there or Logan Circle).
We did brunch at the most fantastic place called, Firefly Cafe. I had buiscuits and gravy, while Bryce had the french toast. The food was divine, and the atmosphere even cooler. There is a giant tree in the middle of the room. They give you your check in a mason jar with holes punched out at the top and a flameless candle to mimic fireflies in a jar. SO CUTE. Then we headed to (walked more) the Botanical Gardens, The Hirshorn and the National Archives.
Are you tired yet? I know I am after recounting all the fun things we did! We made it to dinner (decided to take the metro this time) at a place called The Commissary. They had a fantastic happy hour deal and we got truffle fries (because duh), a quesadilla and grilled artichoke hearts with an aioli dipping sauce. Oh yes, we were quite refreshed and ready to stand for a couple hours at the concert! We had a blast at the concert. Houndmouth recently added 3 new bandmates after someone left, which included 2 saxophone players. They sound so freaking cool. By midnight we had finally made it back home. Phew. And I sit here with lots of coffee. Hope you all had an awesome weekend too!
I figured the easiest way to share photos is to break it down into places we went. This first installment of our honeymoon is Rome (the first time) days 1-3.
Day 1: We arrived in Rome, dropped our bags at our Airbnb went and had lunch and created a game plan. We stayed in the most adorable town called, Trastevere and would absolutely go back. A gelato shop was 2 steps outside our door (Nocciola is my favorite!) With food (rice balls by the way are the most divine thing ever and you must try some!) and espresso in our bellies, off we went to the Colosseum. It was starting to get dark when we finished, so we decided to head back to our place to figure our dinner plans (Also, italians don't eat dinner earlier than 7. So don't try.)
Day 2: We got up early to go to the public mass at the Vatican. Which was very cool. Except it took much longer than anticipated. We got there at 8:40 for a supposed 9am start time. The Pope has a special audience at 9, and then he drives all around in his Pope-mobile so we actually got started about 10. By 10:30 we were only on the first and second readings (which obviously were all in Italian) so we decided to go get breakfast (paninis!) and visit the Vatican museum (which is really a 3 hour long tour instead the Vatican, ending in the Sistine Chapel). We never joined tour groups because they were so large, that we would never get through the things we wanted to see. Plus they were expensive. So half the time we didn't know what we were looking at in the Vatican. But it was beautiful and totally worth it (albeit much longer than we anticipated even in the off season).
Day 3: We made our way to Naples with a train ride and another harrowing taxi experience. All to come in the next blog post!
Let me preface this by saying I'm not an experienced traveler. I basically pack by seeing how much I can fit in one bag and pray its under 50 pounds.
That being said, we did come across some tips and tricks for traveling in Italy that we want to share!
1. SIM card from the country your traveling in. Don't spend extra money putting your current plan on roaming or a special international plan. We traveled for 2 weeks with essentially unlimited data for 70 euro.
2. You don't reallyyyyy need the calling plan if you have data. You can download world phone apps for significantly cheaper that allow you to call. The only reason we ended up calling anyone was for our airbnb and to make a few reservations.
3. Sleep mask. This was CRUCIAL on our flight to Italy since it was overnight. After dinner we finished our movies and let sleep overtake us. It had been a busy couple of days and it wasn't hard to fall asleep.
4. Google Translate or other translator app/book. We used this a lot. We got somewhat proficient at ordering food. and kept on trying even when the waiter would respond back in English. It felt very important to us to speak in as much Italian as possible.
5. Camera. We obviously had our toys, but you don't need anything as intense as ours. But have a camera. Someone gave us beautiful advice before we left, take lots of photos of one another. We actually don't have many photos together (selfies don't count) but we have lots of each other.
6. Good walking shoes. We walked a total of 70 miles while in Italy. Some days we did 8 miles. That is a lot of walking and you want to make sure your feet are feeling good! I wore a pair of flat, knee high boots that went with ever outfit I brought.
7. To have a bag with wheels or not. So this depends on where you're going. I naively didn't think about the copious cobble stone streets of Italy. All over Italy. I brought a (Read- 2) rolling suitcases. Because I was not going to carry anything over 20 pounds on my back and lets be honest we all know my bag was pushing 40 pounds. BUT, I'm not sure I would do it differently. Just think about how frustrated you will be dragging your bag up a giant hill side in Capri. I mean you might not be mad at all. But just consider how you're getting your luggage around.
8. My last tip is an important one and something we did not account for well. Transportation to and from the different places you are staying. Cabs get expensive. And the drivers know you are not natives. Hence, you get charged more. Its a fact. It happens. We just assumed it wouldn't be a big deal to get from all these different places and we had a jam packed travel schedule. But the truth of the matter, is that we ended up canceling part of our trip and rerouting back to Rome because we were so tired of cabs and them ripping us off. We recommend staying no fewer than 3 nights at one place. Otherwise you just end up lugging your aforementioned luggage up a cliff side in Capri, while its raining and you are not a happy camper. But I digress.
9. I lied. That was not my last tip. Instead of lugging around your regular face wash, I highly recommend Cetaphil's face wipes. It took my make-up off so easily and it also has a toner built in. So I didn't need to bring 2 products. Plus it packs brilliantly and I didn't have to worry about leaks!
Again, I'm not a travel expert, but these were a few little tips we wanted to share about traveling. Check back soon for each different installments of our trip!
What are your favorite travel tips?
